


Distance Kills (come a little closer)

by ChaoticBabe



Category: From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series
Genre: Bank Robbery, F/M, Post-Season/Series 03, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sexual Content, soft
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-14
Updated: 2019-11-14
Packaged: 2021-01-30 05:17:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21422800
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChaoticBabe/pseuds/ChaoticBabe
Summary: Kate wasn’t expecting to survive Amaru, at the time it had seemed inevitable that she was going to die with her. But then she didn’t.
Relationships: Kate Fuller/Seth Gecko
Comments: 15
Kudos: 96





	Distance Kills (come a little closer)

**Author's Note:**

> Should I be finishing my other fic? Yes.  
Am I writing this instead? You bet.

The first three months are the worst.

Kate wasn’t expecting to survive Amaru, at the time it had seemed inevitable that she was going to die with her. But then she didn’t. Turns out she wasn’t prepared for the fallout of surviving.

Nothing could have really prepared her anyway.

Her days are spent on edge, perpetually stuck in some half state of fear, ready to fight or run at a moments notice. 

She can’t even look at her own reflection without flinching. Afraid that one day she’ll look and find someone else in her place. Jumping at shadows at the edge of her vision, expecting someone to strike out and get her. On some level Kate thinks this has as much to do with all the unprocessed grief and fear from back in Mexico. Telling herself over and over she’s safe doesn’t really help, after all it wouldn’t be the first time someone came back from the dead now would it. 

This she hides well enough, keeping busy following Richie and Seth around, their constant shadow. Not that they seemed to be in a hurry to have her out of their sight. 

Her nights are the worst filled with nightmares, screams of people murdered, souls lost forever, crying out in her head. She has nightmares of killing people she loves, having to watch helpless as her own hands end them. Memories of being shot, and waking unsure if any of it’s real. Amaru was good at playing games, and with Kate she had a constant source of amusement. She woke those nights screaming in terror, hiding the undercover, refusing to allow herself to go back to sleep. Nothing good awaited her there. The lack of sleep didn’t help her anxiousness during the days. She doesn’t know how to cope. How to come back from this.

She’s not sure she what would have become of her if Seth hadn’t stepped in.

For as unprepared as Kate is to deal with her demons, Seth on the other hand takes it all in stride. Well all in hand once he stopped avoiding the sight of her. At first he seemed content to let her deal on her own, in her own way. He kept a careful distance between the two of them for the first week, after he was assured that her wounds were well cared for. In fact he stayed so distant Kate had begun questioning the wisdom of leaving with the Geckos. He seemed completely unwilling to be alone with her, and always halfway out the door, a good foot between them even with others around. 

If Kate wasn’t so exhausted she probably would have been extremely hurt by it all, but as things were she only had a distant awareness of it, with no idea as to how to change things. 

A little too tightly wrung to even try to fix things.

Things end up fixing themselves one night, with Seth bursting into her room, shaking her awake from a dream that had her crying out.

His face hovered over her, and for a moment she doesn’t recognize him.

It isn’t till he starts to say her name in earnest that Kate realizes who he is, and lets out a sigh, whole body going limp with relief. 

“_Seth _”

“I’m here, you’re okay sweetheart. You’re okay.” 

It’s too much, and the flood gates open, a torrent of emotion has her sobbing loud and ugly. Seth slips quickly into bed with her, pulling her to his chest, holding her tight enough to hurt if it wasn’t so reassuring. Both of her hands dig into his chest, while she breaks against him. She can hear him saying something over and over, but she can’t make out the word over her own noise, but his voice is soothing. Eventually she grows quiet, Seth doesn’t move but for one hand gently caressing her back. 

“Is it always like this?”

Kate can do nothing but nod.

Her room, like all the other living spaces is underneath the bar, but she’s far away from most other occupied rooms, probably to give her some privacy from all the workers and others who wander the underground area. It just feels isolating.

Seth’s body tenses, pressing his lips to her hair. Breathing deep he rests his chin on the top of her head, “I’m sorry, Kate.”

There are so many things she could say to that, a part of her still angry with him, upset over the avoidance this past week, upset over a lot of things she isn’t ready to deal with. 

So all she says is this, “Stay.”

And he does.

After that night Kate finds Seth moving all his belongings into the room next to hers. Catching his while bringing some clothes from his old room. His eyes go wide, like he’s been caught doing something bad.

“I just thought, it might be a good idea. I mean if I was closer, then-”

“Want some help?”

He relaxes, words have never really been Seth’s strong suit when expressing emotion Kate’s found.

“Yeah, that’d be nice princess.”

Kate doesn’t sleep alone after that, even if she starts off every night that way. When the nightmares come so does Seth. He’s always there to calm her down, eventually lulling her back to sleep with stories from his and Richie's youth. The extra sleep goes along way to helping her function during the day. At some point around the three month mark, waking from a nightmare without screaming, Kate finds Seth already sound asleep in bed beside her. She just curls into his side, his arm unconsciously wrapping around her waist, and she goes back to sleep. 

They never really talk about it, Kate isn’t sure how, and Seth is well Seth.

Things get better, slowly but surely. She’ll never be that girl she used to be, but Kate begins to think one day she might be okay.

Eventually the three of them start pulling jobs together. 

With Kate getting more slightly more sleep at night, she became more aware during the day.

It starts when Kate takes notice of the tension in the Geckos, a restlessness that running a bar and criminal empire didn’t seem to satisfy. Both too used to the adrenaline of working a job, to give it up completely, no matter what they say. Which is why one day Kate casually asks when they plan on getting back to robbing banks again, she’s not sure that’s actually what they want to be doing but it had been their MO before they met.

Both of them seem oddly shocked by her question. 

Richie bounces back first with a smirk, cocking his head towards Seth.

“Yeah Seth, when will the geckos ride again?”

Seth works his jaw while staring Richie down, before briefly glancing her way. 

Ah, so they had talked about it before.

With a sigh he announces, “Soon.”

Richie’s answering grin is sharp and deadly entirely too pleased with the new state of things, it should worry Kate that she finds herself wearing a similar smile. It should, but it doesn’t. 

Later that night, when they are both lying in her bed Seth asks if she's well enough to do jobs. It goes without saying she'll be robbing the bank with them.

"I don't wake up screaming anymore."

"You still have nightmares." Kate shrugs at that.

"I'll probably always have nightmares." Seth nods, pulling her close, and they don't speak anymore on it.

A month later finds them hitting their first bank together. 

It goes smoother than any of them could have ever hoped.

Kate feels oddly alive, fitting into place between them like she was made to. Maybe she was.

That’s how they spend the next several months, casing banks then hitting them up, before laying low back at Jack Knives, making sure everything is in order there. Then they repeat.

It’s a good system for the most part.

One that keeps all three of them from getting to antsy staying in one place too long, Seth seems to breath a little easier these days.

It’s a good and steady system till Richie gets an idea in his head, ever the ambitious one. 

Wants them to hit three banks in a day.

Seth thinks it’s risky, repeats said fact several times while unable to hide the gleam in his eye, he likes the idea of being notorious. Building up the Tres Gecko name. Nods his head as Richie lays out his plan, pointing out from time to time a flaw that makes it _ Stupid risky, _ Kate can’t help but notice how he seems to look at her when he says that.

Kate feels it’s a bit too much, but agrees easily enough. Once she says yes, Seth makes a few obligatory negative comments about the idea and then agrees. On the principle that Richie would just get himself hurt without them, of course.

Kate holds back a laugh when she catches Richie rolling his eyes at Seth. 

In the end the plan is good, they just didn’t plan on how much manpower the manhunt for them would have. Robbing banks in broad daylight dressed to the nines tends to make people aware of your presence, and the Geckos have the added hype of having faked their own deaths. No, it was expected that the police would go after them hard, they just hadn’t quite figured how desperate the police would be to get them, the constant one upping them had to be humiliating. 

Naturally both Seth and Richie take all the extra interest as some sort of compliment even if it is problematic, Kate just thinks it’s funny that the news is still referring to her as the ‘female accomplice’. There’s a running bet on how long it’ll take for them to figure out her name. In another month Richie will end up winning the pool.

There’s a plan in place for this very just in case scenario, something they thought up between the two of them while drinking beer and watching old westerns. Kate has no previous knowledge of this plan and is quietly skeptical, something she apparently isn’t hiding very well if the constant reassurance from both the boys is anything to go by.

It goes like this, they have to split up. 

Seth and Kate go one way together while Richie another on his own. Less likely to be noticed if all three of them aren’t together. It’s only supposed to last a week. Maybe Two. Just till the manhunt dies down, then they’ll meet back up at home.

Already Kate finds herself questioning the wisdom of this, but nods her head along anyways. There seems to be little else they can do anyway, besides she thinks with the warmth of Seth’s hand on her back guiding her to the car, the only other option is all three go on separately. And she much preferred things this way.

When Seth starts the car he turns to her before taking off.

“Ready, partner?”

“Ready.”

* * *

The two of them make their way down the interstate with the radio on low.

The silence between them isn't awkward but it's weighted. Things between them feeling off kilter without Richie to break the tension. Back in Mexico it was almost impossible to get Seth to stop talking no matter what mood he was in that day. Now he holds back, she sees him out of the corner of her eye open his mouth to say something, only to shut it before anything comes out. Kate isn’t sure what to make of it.

While he’s long stopped keeping her at arms length, he’s still oddly careful with her. 

She doesn’t know how to act around him when it’s just the two of them during the day, since they don’t speak of the fact that Seth all but shares a room with her now. The ground they stand on seems to be constantly shifting and Kate isn’t sure how to ever find her balance.

They make their way into another state before one of them breaks the silence.

It’s Seth of course who does.

“What about the beach?”

For a second Kate is unsure if he really spoke or if she just imagined it, having long since zoned out watching the world pass by staring out the window.

“What?”

“The beach. Wanna go? You’re always insisting on swimming in the motel pools, no matter how questionable they are. Why not the ocean?”

She’s silent in consideration for a moment, yes of course she wants to go to the ocean. She loves being in the water, but.

“Shouldn’t we be laying low?”

“We can do that at the beach.”

“Will you actually go with me?”

Kate's not even sure Seth owns swimming trunks, she somehow can’t imagine it. The few times he came to sit by the pool while she swam, he always wore pants. 

Seth heaves a long suffering sigh, as if he wasn’t the one who brought the idea up, “yeah princess I go with you.”

Before Kate has the chance to bring up the possible bathing suite problem, Seth starts talking again, gesturing with his right hand.

“Without Richie we can actually go during daylight hours, who knows you might actually manage to tan.”

She stops short at that, it’s true, more often than not with Richie being predisposed to going up in flames in the sun they don’t go out during daylight hours. Not often usually, and rarely for long. Most of their days are actually night time hours and vise versa. Kate's gotten used to it, at the bar it's barely noticeable, and mainly goes to the pool when they're away at night, ignoring whatever sign informing her to stay out, too tired to go during daylight hours.

“I tan just, fine.”

Seth snorts, “You’re as pale as the day you were born, out of the three of us people are more likely to think you’re the one with fangs.”

Okay, so she’s naturally pale. Whatever.

“You think it’ll be safe? “ She asks hopefully.

Seth grins wide and bright, right hand coming to rest on her thigh giving it a reassuring squeeze, “Yeah, we’ll be fine. We’ll put a couple more hours between us and our biggest fans, then find a nice hotel seaside.”

Kate nods her head, hiding her smile while turning to look out the window. Seth doesn’t move his hand away, even when she lays her own on top, just lightly entwining their fingers.

Another thing they probably won’t talk about.

* * *

The beach is wonderful, and they’ve been here for four days, two at this particular hotel, when Kate’s world turns itself on her head.

The thing about Kate is she’s been through a lot in the last year, and yeah okay anyone who knows her knows that, but the thing is, with all the trauma, generally just trying to survive day to day, she’s been a little slow on the uptake of her own feelings. 

Kate loves easily and freely. Maybe a little too easily, some would say. 

Kate loves the Gecko brothers, she knows that. She’s known that for a long time, all the way back to Amaru. She’s not sure when it happened, just aware it did. Now that she gets, what she didn’t take notice of is the fact it’s less familiar love than what she originally thought. 

They’ve never been exactly like brothers to her, and yes she’s aware of how attractive the both of them are, but still she considered them family in some strange way.

But now as she’s laying on the beach laughing at a story about the time he and Richie set off a minor fire in their uncle eddies kitchen, she realizes oh, she loves Seth. 

She’s in love with Seth Gecko. 

The thought has her freezing almost mid laugh, oh fuck she loves him. 

Seth catching on that something is obviously wrong stops talking. 

How had she ignored this so thoroughly? The signs were all there, she pushed it all down and away. Telling herself so what if she blushed sometimes around him, he was good looking it wasn't surprising she take notice. So what he’s the one she seeks out for almost everything, they have history, of course she’d go to him. 

“What’s going on in that head of yours?”

Seth brings her back to the present, and she scrambles to shove this new awareness back down where it belongs.

“Nothing, I‘m fine. Go on, you said Richie threw the orange juic-”

Seth’s hand reaching over cradling her neck, thumb rubbing her cheek bone stops her short. God, she was such an idiot.

“No, everything is not fine. You looked like you’d just been hit.” His voice is worried and insistent. He’s not going to let it go.

Softly she assures him, “Seth, I’m okay. Just had a moment, but it passed.”

'A moment' is their polite way of saying her anxiety was running wild, a vague fear that at any moment_ she_ was going to appear, Kate feels kinda bad about using it to lie to him, but can’t find any other way to get him to let it go.

Seth nods his head, hesitantly asking, “Wanna talk about it?”

They sleep in the same bed. Every. Night.

And she convinced herself she would have been just as fine if it was Richie there, god was she in denial.

“No, no. It’s fine, but maybe we could have another drink?” 

“You’d tell me if it was important wouldn’t you.” 

“Of course.” It wasn’t actually a lie, it wasn’t vital that he know she was in love with him- it would only cause problems. Kate could deal with this on her own. 

Finally he said, “Well, okay then.” Looking less than convinced, but thankfully willing to move on for the time being. 

Yeah, Kate thought, watching him walk off to get them another round of drinks, she could deal with this on her own.

She kinda wishes she was still in denial though.

* * *

For the following days Kate quietly withdraws from Seth. Not enough that he should take notice, just enough for her to breath. Being around his has suddenly become a test of will power to not stare at his face in mild wonder, or stumble over her words. It’s not that anything about him changed, yet all the same she’s looking at him anew. Quietly going over ever interaction they’ve ever had together in her head. Trying to figure out how she got here. 

More importantly, trying to figure out just how Seth sees her. Is she just some kid sister to him, an obligation born of guilt that he thinks he needs to take care of, or something more? She’s pretty sure it’s not the guilt thing, Seth would have just given her enough money to take care of herself and sent her on her way if that was the case. And remembering all the little touches, the way his hands always linger longer than necessary, Kate’s beginning to think she might not be the only one who feels this way. She seeing as how she’s biased to hope, she could be reading too much into, well everything. 

One way or another things have changed, and eventually Seth is going to notice.

In fact it doesn’t take him more than two days.

They’ve switched hotels once more, on the off chance anyone’s recognizing them, but Seth says they can start heading back home tomorrow. 

She just nods her head, slowly slipping into bed for the night.

Since Seth always ends up in her bed at some point in the night, they only bothered getting a single. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

When he goes to turn off the light and put an arm around her, he no longer bothers waiting till she wakes of nightmares, causing her to tense.

Trying to relax the past couple nights has been a struggle. Hyper Aware of every touch between them now.

It takes her too long to settle, Seth goes tense before rolling onto his back. Throwing the arm that had been around her waist over his eyes. 

“Katie,” There’s something still and careful about his voice. “What’s going on.”

“Nothing.” It comes out weak and defeated. She doesn’t want to have this conversation, if he doesn’t want her it’ll ruin everything. Kate’s already lost a lot, and she isn’t ready to lose Seth over this. Things were fine before, she’s sure they can be fine again given time.

“Kate.” His voice comes out ruff and tinged with more than a little exasperation. “Things are clearly as shit not fine. I didn’t push before, figured if you wanted to talk about it you would. But this..”

Turning to face him as his voice trails off, seeming at a loss as to how to describe the situation at hand. Lifting his arm from his face, eyes roaming the ceiling before catching hers. “Did i do something?”

“What?”

“Cause, if I did you’re going to have to tell me.”

“No! No, you didn’t do anything.” she breaks eye contact looking to the side. It only serves to frustrate him.

“Then what the fuck, Kate. You’re barely speaking to me, and anytime I come near you,” He moves to sit up in the bed, turning on the lamp beside the bed, “You look like a deer caught in the headlights, and that’s when it doesn’t look like you wanna make a run for mexico.”

She sits up, goes to reassure him, however falsely, that things are just fine, but all that comes out is, “Like I would ever willingly go back to Mexico.”

His eyes narrow, works his jaw in annoyance.

“Fine.”

And he’s getting out of the bed, moving towards his clothes.

“What are you doing?”

“Going to get another room, you don’t want me around and don’t want to tell me why exactly, then fine.” He turns towards her, throwing his arms up in exasperation. Kate can feel her heart plummet into her stomach, this is the sort of thing she had wanted to avoid. 

Scrambling out of bed, grabbing his arm in an effort to prevent him from dressing. Breathing hard, terrified she’d gone and messed things up anyhow, “Wait, no don’t do that, I want you to stay.”

Looking down into her face, he pinned her with a dark unreadable expression. “Then you need to tell me what’s going on. Cause I’m trying here. Really trying, but I need to know whats wrong. Things were good, then they weren’t.” 

Sighing in resignation, “You didn’t do anything.”

Not looking away he slowly nods his head, ”Okay, then what is it?”

She doesn’t know how to word it, to not sound like some silly teenager, making him run away just that much faster. So since she’s probably about to ruin things for good anyway, she leans up, one hand going to his neck, she sees his eyes widened slightly before she kisses him. 

It’s just a soft press of lips, enough to get her point across, still she sighs against him. It’s something she wanted for longer than she’ll ever admit. Pulling away after a few seconds when he doesn’t respond, letting her arms fall to her sides. Chancing a look at is face, she brings her eyes up from his chest. 

What greets her is a frozen man, so still he could be a statue. Kate swallows reflexively and waits for him to process. 

His eyes narrow in on her when he starts breathing again. She can’t read what he’s thinking from his face, and it’s killing her.

Her voice is sad and desperate,“We can just forget it. Nothing has to change.”

Whatever else she was going to say is swallowed up by Seth’s mouth, lips pressing firmly against her own. Both his hands grab her by the waist, pulling her till they’re pressed against one another. Getting over her initial shock, Kate kisses him back, a low groan escapes Seth. Somehow Kate’s hands end up in Seth’s hair, trying to get closer, closer to him. Seth’s tongue finds it way into her mouth, she tentatively responds in turn. 

After that whatever self control they had seems to be broken, the kiss becomes fervent before they have to pull away to breath. Seth doesn’t stop, simply moving to her neck, slowly backing the two of them up to the bed. The sound that leaves Kate is breathy and needy, Seth grins against her throat. Moving to lay back on the bed, Seth kneels between her legs, looking down at her, running a hand along side, tugging at her shirt asking permission to take it off. Nodding her head, she’s quickly relieved of the offending clothing. 

She has a moment of embarrassment before Seth's hungry stare takes her breath away, they’re kissing again before she can get it back. Briefly he pulls half an inch away to say, “And you were acting weird cause you, what, thought I didn’t want you?” the end of his sentence ringing with incredulity. “Are you insane?” 

He claims her lips again before she can retort. Running her hands along his chest she finds at some point he’s taken off his wife beater, and she takes full advantage of this fact to explore his chest. Seth moves to slowly trail kisses down to her chest. With what little presence of mind she has left Kate states breathlessly, “We’ll have to talk about this later.”

Seth nips at the underside of her breast, causing her to let out a surprised yelp “Now you want to talk.” He groans. 

“Later, oh.” Seth grinds their hips together, the hardness in briefs creating a delicious friction.

“Hmm, later.” he mumbles, against her skin. Wrapping a leg around his waist to grind up against him, has both of them moaning. Seth meets her eyes, sitting up with one hand fingering her panties and sleep shorts, “Tell me if you want to stop, baby. At anytime.”

Kate reaches down to help him pull them off, “Don’t stop.”

His sigh of relief feels empowering.

Then she’s fully naked and nervous again. Seth’s words soon ease some of that, “Oh, baby you’re gorgeous.” She can feel a full blush take over her face.

Seth drags his hips along the length of hers again kissing her stomach, making his way lower. Kate can’t help but mumble his name, then his mouth is licking up inside of her. One hand grasps his hair, accidentally yanking on it some but he only groans into her, causing her to moan in turn. For awhile she loses herself to the feel of his skilled tongue and fingers. Only coming back to herself when something building inside of her burst. She cries out, and distantly hears Seth mumbling ‘that’s it baby, let go’, over the haze in her head. “Seth” 

Then he’s there, kissing her, she can taste herself in his mouth. His hands rove her chest lightly squeezing, and kneading. Breaking the kiss, Seth’s lips look bruised, and Kate figures she looks much the same if not worse. “I want you.”

He grins bright, and maybe a little surprised, “You sure, we don’t have to.” He works to reassure, but Kate’s already reaching for his briefs. “I want you, Seth.” and god does she sound needy, but Seth doesn’t seem to mind.

“Whatever you want princess.” 

When the tip of him presses up against the slick of her, she lets out a gasp, Seth hesitates. “ You sure?”

And it’s sweet but Kate thinks she might hit him if he doesn’t move, “_ Seth _, yes.” He lets out a laugh at her annoyance that quickly turns into a moan once he’s inside of her. Kate tenses from the new feeling, it hurts some but mostly she just feels full. While Kate gets accustomed to the feel of him Seth holds still, with a deep breath she moves.

“Fuck, Kate.” 

Seth begins thrusting, slow at first but picks up speed when she asks him to, gripping her hips hard enough that they’ll probably bruise. Soon enough all discomfort is forgotten and Kate starts to move with him, soft moans and whines to Seth’s groans and half mumbled words. 

Seth comes first, leaning down to groan her name into the crook of her neck. Giving a few more thrusts, moving a hand down to rub the bundle of nerves, then he has her crying out again if softer this time.

They are both panting, with Seth laying against her. “You good sweetheart?”

With a smile on her lips, she answers, “I’m really good Seth.” 

Leaning up he chuckles, kissing the underside of her jaw, “Good, good.” He moves so not so much of his weight is on top of her, but still touching. 

“Still wanna talk?”  
“Yeah, probably should but in the morning, before we leave.”

“You know, we could just stay another week.”

She can almost feel how casual he’s trying to be, almost as if he thinks she wouldn’t want to spend anymore time alone with him. They’d have to talk about that too, but later. There was time. “I’d like that.”

“One more week it is then.” he sounds relieved relaxing into the bed. Slowly she turns to curl into his chest, and she feels like laughing for ever thinking he wouldn’t want her. They’ll talk in the morning, but for now she was curious to see if tonight she’d sleep through the night. She wasn’t that worried, if she didn’t Seth would still be there to hold her.

**Author's Note:**

> ~Lately everyone is talking about their love for SethKate and well it had me wanting to write a little stand alone one of them.  
~ had this little idea in my head of were Kate didn't realize she was in love with Seth. Anyone who has experienced a major traumatic event Knows it has a way of taking over your life, and Kate went through several- not to mention when we originally meet her in the series she is still grieving the lose of her mother; point is while it's implied she is in love with him, I liked the idea that maybe she hadn't quite figured out yet that she was in love with him.


End file.
